Born in 1989 in Yunnan, China, Sai Li lives and works in Shanghai. She studied Social Economics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen–Nürnberg in Germany. Eight years
abroad, shaped by extensive travel across Europe and beyond, informed her early engagement
with photography and painting as modes of visual observation.
Sai’s practice does not approach cultural difference as spectacle, nor does it frame encounter
through conflict. Instead, she treats the visual as an affective language—capable of carrying
emotion without translation. Figures from varied cultural contexts appear in her work as co-
present and equal, their emotional states held rather than interpreted or classified.
Attuned to fragile emotional exchanges, Sai explores the possibility of connection beyond
language and cultural structure. Her work asks whether empathy can persist through perception
and resonance alone, and gestures toward a non-verbal dialogue that moves across time and
place, offering an alternative mode of relational understanding.
Since returning to Shanghai in 2018, she has initiated several experimental art projects. Rooted in Yunnan yet shaped by her experiences in Germany, her practice is marked by vivid colors and dialectical thought.
Her practice explores the interplay between untamed vitality and quiet restraint, placing this dynamic within the broader context of nature and the cosmos. From this expansive perspective, she returns to the intimate rhythms of everyday life.
Her art invites dialogue, sometimes whimsical and playful, at other times profound and questioning. Light and shadow, the growth and decay of plants, playful animals, and everyday humans converge in her reflections on life’s cycles and the interconnectedness of all things, where imagination unfolds across time.
Through painting, photography, installation, and multimedia, Sai Li explores the intersections of art, fashion, and nature, challenging conventional modes of perception. Working primarily with painting and collage, she situates individual experience within broader natural and cosmic contexts.
Water, light, and shadow; the growth and decay of plants; and the vastness of the cosmos form a field of reflection on life’s interconnections. Things cycle between disappearance and renewal, and imagination unfolds endlessly—without end, yet pointing toward an almost eternal state of being.
